Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.

I've been working as an atty for the feds for a bit now. Quite frankly, when compared to the [non-shit law] private sector, it kind of sucks. This is coming from someone who lives in a major metropolitan area. So, the situation may be different for employees in the heartland and such. My thoughts:

Pay sucks. You'll likely struggle for the first couple of years, especially if you have family and dependents. If you started with the feds as an entry level atty, it takes a few years to reach a six figure salary. Your salary will probably plateau to the 120s mid-career, which is not bad, but in a metropolitan area where your private counterparts by that time are making quite a bit more, it's just OK.

No rewards for performance. You can work your ass off and produce high quality work, but you'll still get the same pay, benefits, and probably the same promotion potential as everyone else. Seniority counts most, and it really brings down the morale of the young and ambitious who go do really good work.

The vaunted pension sucks for newer employees. I've heard the argument that federal employees deserve a generous pension for the lower pay they received. Welp, newer employees will receive lower pay and a pension roughly equivalent to social security, if not less. Yikes. Plus, new federal employees pay 4.4% of each pay check for the pension, and this is likely to continue to increase without reciprocal benefits (other than, I guess, keeping the fund afloat).

Annual leave sucks. Almost all my private counterparts have more generous vacation benefits, which I found very surprising considering all the horror stories I've heard about private work.

Health benefits are just OK. Most of my private counterparts pay more, but not by much. Considering the substantial pay difference, I don't see what the big fuss is about it. I imagine that in parts of the country where the health insurance market is in especially bad shape, federal health benefits are better in relative terms.

Horrible bureaucracy. I cannot not stress how abysmal the situation is. The federal government should just contract their support shit out. Much of my stress is worrying about whether important documents will actually be processed and not remain buried in an unread email for weeks.

No relocation. I know, this isn't universal in the private sector, but it's not uncommon to receive either a lump sum or reimbursement for moving expenses. Generally, that's not the case with feds. Accepted a federal job clear across the country? Break your lease; job starts next week. Good luck!

Your livelihood is subject to the whims of Congress. One of the greatest perks of the federal government is job security. This is still generally the norm. However, job security is quickly eroding. This is justified, in part, but it makes the lucrative private sector relatively more alluring. But most concerning is the political nature this trend is taking. I feel for anyone working in the EPA and Energy. Additionally, PSLF is hanging by a thread, leaving long-term public servants in a difficult situation. Finally, more broadly speaking, politicians attack federal employees ("bureaucrats in Washington") to garner political points, which leads to the continued deterioration of benefits, which brings me to my final point.

To top it all off, a lot of people hate you. The country buys into the notion that federal employees are lazy fat cats living the life. But that can't be further from the truth. Federal employees work really hard (though not all!) for a salary and benefits that continue to deteriorate, at least in relative terms.

I'll just note that experiences vary between agencies, but I believe that most of these points apply across the feds.

I'm starting at DOJ honors in a month here. Finishing a clerkship. Even if all of that is true, not having to work for biglaw patherns certainly has to even the playing field. Plus, at least for what I'm going into, I can jump to a firm/in-house fairly easily. Your post just sounds like you want to make a fuckton of money and you're frustrating you're not.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm starting at DOJ honors in a month here. Finishing a clerkship. Even if all of that is true, not having to work for biglaw patherns certainly has to even the playing field. Plus, at least for what I'm going into, I can jump to a firm/in-house fairly easily. Your post just sounds like you want to make a fuckton of money and you're frustrating you're not.

OP here. The salary, in the long-run, is fine, but you have to look at it in context of the other benefits and aspects of the job (i.e. all the other points I brought up in my post). To be clear, the comparisons I am making the private legal jobs are mostly jobs in compliance, in-house, and well-to-do boutique type firms in the city. I actually had a chance to go in house, but I went Fed instead. Oy vey

Anonymous User wrote:I'm starting at DOJ honors in a month here. Finishing a clerkship. Even if all of that is true, not having to work for biglaw patherns certainly has to even the playing field. Plus, at least for what I'm going into, I can jump to a firm/in-house fairly easily. Your post just sounds like you want to make a fuckton of money and you're frustrating you're not.

Because your supervisors at the DOJ will be any better than Biglaw partners? lol.

Hell most of the partners in my group are ex-DOJ. So you're literally dealing with the same type of people

I actually appreciate the OP taking the time to post this. Exaggerating a bit but TLS generally seems to collectively view going inhouse or govt (especially doj/usao) as like the best endgame an attorney can have after spending a few years in the biglaw grind. Every job has its perks & downsides and it's not a bad thing to understand the downsides of working at what otherwise appears to be an unicorn job from the outside. Most people put a huge emphasis on the pay cut and not necessarily other factors as much.

As a former finance guy for a Fed agency, there are certainly relocation benefits in other parts of the Govt (honestly, it's surprising to me that the DOJ does not provide relocation benefits). In short, it will vary by agency.

I'll jump in as well to provide insight as went from biglaw to fed recently and seriously regret it. First, let me say that the Federal Government is huge and it doesnt really make sense to compare the FED as a whole to the specific agency you work for. Some agencies pay 120k and you work 9-5 and work gets done when it gets done. My agency pays much less and i have stringent deadlines that sometimes makes me have to burn some midnight oil. I knew the paycut i was getting into but didnt expect to have to do the amount of work for the level of pay i make. I'm hoping i can jump back in to biglaw and hopefully get a better exit option down the road. My advice to anyone looking at FED is to make sure the agency you are getting into is a good one in terms of work/life balance as i recongize that some of my friends working for other agencies are indeed living the FED dream. Other observations:

Annual leave: yes this sucks badHealth care: good Job security: not that worried...Trump's constant tweeting ensures no serious reform will happen, plus i think they would need 60 votes?The American people: yeah they hate you but this is something you knew going in

It's all relative, right? I make more as a federal attorney than I ever did in my previous career, and I make more than my husband does right now, too. I never worked in biglaw so my salary has only gone up, and I don't compare my salary to biglaw because I knew I didn't want that lifestyle. I recognize that it definitely helps that I'm in a relatively low COL area (although if you're in a high COL area you should hit 6 figures around GS 13, though again I realize it doesn't go as far).

In my experience/agency I would say there are rewards for performance, if not monetary (but again, I never worked anywhere with bonuses). I actually like not worrying about whether colleague X is making more than I am despite being a lazy bastard (which I definitely had happen in my previous career) - it doesn't bother me for us to be making the same. For me, personally, I am super happy to somewhere where I can just do this job for a while without trying to worry about striving for yet another brass ring.

I haven't wanted to take leave and not been able to, either. It helps once you get to 6 hours per pay period. I also find everyone is very protective and supportive of vacations. It does take a little bit of time to build up the leave.

Pension and health benefits - you're probably right. I'm just happy to have them. And my agency matches some of the retirement contributions, which I believe is really uncommon in high-paying private sector jobs.

Bureaucracy - yes and no on this one. Yes, a lot of it is really really stupid and inefficient, and yeah, it sucks that getting rid of someone who's terrible at their job is so hard. And as someone not in the major metro, sometimes there's a mismatch with D.C. which can be annoying. But in terms of my day to day, my actual work, it doesn't affect what I do much. I run my cases and while I need my supervisor to sign off on various things, I'm pretty autonomous. And it's just me going to my immediate boss, so it's pretty uncomplicated. It doesn't sound anything like biglaw and how junior associates operate there. The hierarchy is really very flat and I like that.

Relocation - oh the fuck well. Never had that before, why would I miss it now?

I agree about people hating federal employees. I basically don't tell people what I do if I can avoid it. But then, people generally hate lawyers, too, so you're skewered either way.

And my job is pretty unpolitical in the day to day, way less than a lot of them, I think, but I do think working in say DC in certain agencies must be pretty fucking miserable right now. There was an Atlantic article about the DOE transition to Trump and I practically wanted to slit my wrists in sympathy.

None of this is to say that you shouldn't feel the way you do about it. It's clearly a very personal thing. For me, the things you bring up don't outweigh the benefits of not looking at my phone/email after I leave work and having pretty predictable hours. If you're bailing from biglaw to either the Feds or to in house, yeah, in house is probably going to have the advantages of the Feds without a lot of the downsides. In house for me as a litigator who never did biglaw is never likely to happen, so it's not even on my radar for comparison, but I can see how that's not the case for others.

(I think people can overestimate the complexity and significance of a lot of federal work - a ton of it is SUPER routine and mundane - and again most of the time I'm perfectly good with that, but I do think people can have unrealistic expectations.)

Anonymous User wrote:I'll jump in as well to provide insight as went from biglaw to fed recently and seriously regret it. First, let me say that the Federal Government is huge and it doesnt really make sense to compare the FED as a whole to the specific agency you work for. Some agencies pay 120k and you work 9-5 and work gets done when it gets done. My agency pays much less and i have stringent deadlines that sometimes makes me have to burn some midnight oil. I knew the paycut i was getting into but didnt expect to have to do the amount of work for the level of pay i make. I'm hoping i can jump back in to biglaw and hopefully get a better exit option down the road. My advice to anyone looking at FED is to make sure the agency you are getting into is a good one in terms of work/life balance as i recongize that some of my friends working for other agencies are indeed living the FED dream. Other observations:

Annual leave: yes this sucks badHealth care: good Job security: not that worried...Trump's constant tweeting ensures no serious reform will happen, plus i think they would need 60 votes?The American people: yeah they hate you but this is something you knew going in

A. Nony Mouse wrote:It's all relative, right? I make more as a federal attorney than I ever did in my previous career, and I make more than my husband does right now, too. I never worked in biglaw so my salary has only gone up, and I don't compare my salary to biglaw because I knew I didn't want that lifestyle. I recognize that it definitely helps that I'm in a relatively low COL area (although if you're in a high COL area you should hit 6 figures around GS 13, though again I realize it doesn't go as far).

In my experience/agency I would say there are rewards for performance, if not monetary (but again, I never worked anywhere with bonuses). I actually like not worrying about whether colleague X is making more than I am despite being a lazy bastard (which I definitely had happen in my previous career) - it doesn't bother me for us to be making the same. For me, personally, I am super happy to somewhere where I can just do this job for a while without trying to worry about striving for yet another brass ring.

I haven't wanted to take leave and not been able to, either. It helps once you get to 6 hours per pay period. I also find everyone is very protective and supportive of vacations. It does take a little bit of time to build up the leave.

Pension and health benefits - you're probably right. I'm just happy to have them. And my agency matches some of the retirement contributions, which I believe is really uncommon in high-paying private sector jobs.

Bureaucracy - yes and no on this one. Yes, a lot of it is really really stupid and inefficient, and yeah, it sucks that getting rid of someone who's terrible at their job is so hard. And as someone not in the major metro, sometimes there's a mismatch with D.C. which can be annoying. But in terms of my day to day, my actual work, it doesn't affect what I do much. I run my cases and while I need my supervisor to sign off on various things, I'm pretty autonomous. And it's just me going to my immediate boss, so it's pretty uncomplicated. It doesn't sound anything like biglaw and how junior associates operate there. The hierarchy is really very flat and I like that.

Relocation - oh the fuck well. Never had that before, why would I miss it now?

I agree about people hating federal employees. I basically don't tell people what I do if I can avoid it. But then, people generally hate lawyers, too, so you're skewered either way.

And my job is pretty unpolitical in the day to day, way less than a lot of them, I think, but I do think working in say DC in certain agencies must be pretty fucking miserable right now. There was an Atlantic article about the DOE transition to Trump and I practically wanted to slit my wrists in sympathy.

None of this is to say that you shouldn't feel the way you do about it. It's clearly a very personal thing. For me, the things you bring up don't outweigh the benefits of not looking at my phone/email after I leave work and having pretty predictable hours. If you're bailing from biglaw to either the Feds or to in house, yeah, in house is probably going to have the advantages of the Feds without a lot of the downsides. In house for me as a litigator who never did biglaw is never likely to happen, so it's not even on my radar for comparison, but I can see how that's not the case for others.

(I think people can overestimate the complexity and significance of a lot of federal work - a ton of it is SUPER routine and mundane - and again most of the time I'm perfectly good with that, but I do think people can have unrealistic expectations.)

It is all relative, you're right. My point is that it isn't all rainbows in Fed-land, depending on the agency.

Re: job security, though, I really think you're underestimating the threat we face. Though this doesn't directly affect most of us right now, the new bipartisan law regarding VA employees makes it much easier to fire employees. It's not unreasonable to think that the new rules will extend to other agencies in the future. Getting rid of unproductive employees is a good thing, sure enough, but I think it's setting a precedent for treating federal employees more like contractors (whether that's good policy or not is an entirely different question). That prospect parallels the gradual erosion of benefits.

Anonymous User wrote:It is all relative, you're right. My point is that it isn't all rainbows in Fed-land, depending on the agency.

Yeah, that's totally fair, both that people can easily overestimate how great it is, and that it varies a lot by agency. For instance:

Re: job security, though, I really think you're underestimating the threat we face. Though this doesn't directly affect most of us right now, the new bipartisan law regarding VA employees makes it much easier to fire employees. It's not unreasonable to think that the new rules will extend to other agencies in the future. Getting rid of unproductive employees is a good thing, sure enough, but I think it's setting a precedent for treating federal employees more like contractors (whether that's good policy or not is an entirely different question). That prospect parallels the gradual erosion of benefits.

I don't think I really mentioned job security, but to be honest I'm in a component/agency where - although this might be naive - I don't foresee this being an issue in the same way as it is for others. I'd never heard of that law until now. So while you're probably right about its potential effects, it's not being talked about at all in my corner of the government. (By which I don't mean to say "I've got mine so fuck you" or anything like that! Only that, again, it's really hard to talk about Fed Gov as some kind of monolith because the experience is so different in different agencies.)

Anonymous User wrote:It is all relative, you're right. My point is that it isn't all rainbows in Fed-land, depending on the agency.

Yeah, that's totally fair, both that people can easily overestimate how great it is, and that it varies a lot by agency. For instance:

Re: job security, though, I really think you're underestimating the threat we face. Though this doesn't directly affect most of us right now, the new bipartisan law regarding VA employees makes it much easier to fire employees. It's not unreasonable to think that the new rules will extend to other agencies in the future. Getting rid of unproductive employees is a good thing, sure enough, but I think it's setting a precedent for treating federal employees more like contractors (whether that's good policy or not is an entirely different question). That prospect parallels the gradual erosion of benefits.

I don't think I really mentioned job security, but to be honest I'm in a component/agency where - although this might be naive - I don't foresee this being an issue in the same way as it is for others. I'd never heard of that law until now. So while you're probably right about its potential effects, it's not being talked about at all in my corner of the government. (By which I don't mean to say "I've got mine so fuck you" or anything like that! Only that, again, it's really hard to talk about Fed Gov as some kind of monolith because the experience is so different in different agencies.)

Sorry, it was a different anonymous poster that mentioned job security, not you. On that subject, it is very recent news and is being implemented on an administrative level as we speak, so that's probably why you haven't heard of it yet.

This post was surprising to me. Having moved from biglaw to a federal agency, I have nothing but great things to say. I'm a c/o 2013 graduate currently making 120k in a secondary market with a pretty solid 9-5 (or 9:30-5:30) gig with two telecommuting days (work from home) a week. My in-house colleagues make 20-30k more than me, but don't have a defined benefit (pension) waiting for them when they retire. Also, if you've got student debt, government work really helps out with that.

Also re:insurance... federal employees get to keep their insurance through retirement and pay only the employee premium which results in massive savings.

Anonymous User wrote:This post was surprising to me. Having moved from biglaw to a federal agency, I have nothing but great things to say. I'm a c/o 2013 graduate currently making 120k in a secondary market with a pretty solid 9-5 (or 9:30-5:30) gig with two telecommuting days (work from home) a week. My in-house colleagues make 20-30k more than me, but don't have a defined benefit (pension) waiting for them when they retire. Also, if you've got student debt, government work really helps out with that.

Also re:insurance... federal employees get to keep their insurance through retirement and pay only the employee premium which results in massive savings.

I'm the anon who mentioned it depends what agency you work for in terms of how good FED is. That said, the above experience you mentioned is probably the norm and me and OP are the exception, so my only point is people need to make sure the FED agency is like yours. I dont think this is a grass is greener situation as most FED governemnt jobs will be a good situation that most biglaw refugees would die for, but my experience is nothing like what you mentioned above. I make about 80k and work 60 hours a week in D.C.

Anonymous User wrote:This post was surprising to me. Having moved from biglaw to a federal agency, I have nothing but great things to say. I'm a c/o 2013 graduate currently making 120k in a secondary market with a pretty solid 9-5 (or 9:30-5:30) gig with two telecommuting days (work from home) a week. My in-house colleagues make 20-30k more than me, but don't have a defined benefit (pension) waiting for them when they retire. Also, if you've got student debt, government work really helps out with that.

Also re:insurance... federal employees get to keep their insurance through retirement and pay only the employee premium which results in massive savings.

Wow, what agency is this, if you don't mind my asking? Which agencies are known for the above?

lolwat wrote:I actually appreciate the OP taking the time to post this. Exaggerating a bit but TLS generally seems to collectively view going inhouse or govt (especially doj/usao) as like the best endgame an attorney can have after spending a few years in the biglaw grind. Every job has its perks & downsides and it's not a bad thing to understand the downsides of working at what otherwise appears to be an unicorn job from the outside. Most people put a huge emphasis on the pay cut and not necessarily other factors as much.

Yeah, much of TLS really seems to paint Fedgov as the bees knees, so it's nice to hear a different perspective for once. Every job has to have its shitty side.

I feel like this must be a primary vs. secondary market thing. I live in a secondary market and am very happy at my federal gig. I can telework up to three times a week, work 40 hour weeks, and have plenty of time off (I accumulate credit hours to make my vacations longer, and sometimes telework on either end of a vacation while abroad). The money is also great for where I live, so no complaints there.

Anonymous User wrote:This post was surprising to me. Having moved from biglaw to a federal agency, I have nothing but great things to say. I'm a c/o 2013 graduate currently making 120k in a secondary market with a pretty solid 9-5 (or 9:30-5:30) gig with two telecommuting days (work from home) a week. My in-house colleagues make 20-30k more than me, but don't have a defined benefit (pension) waiting for them when they retire. Also, if you've got student debt, government work really helps out with that.

Also re:insurance... federal employees get to keep their insurance through retirement and pay only the employee premium which results in massive savings.

Current fed gov attorney who echoes this sentiment. The only difference is I'm in DC though, so the cost of living is kinda a kick in the nuts, but I make large retirement contributions and consistently put a modest amount toward other savings, while still living a comfortable lifestyle (I'm single/no kids, which obviously helps on the financial front).

The "bureaucracy" is the only other frustrating negative aspect (it can take a looong time to accomplish even modest goals) but the positives outweigh the negatives by a lot, in my opinion.